where are the auto saved files for office 2016 for mac?

Anonymous
2015-03-10T02:57:37+00:00

I had autorecoveron (by default) and the app crashed (ironically when i tried to do a normal save). is there a chance i can get my file back and if so where?

this was a powerpoint presentation.

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Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2015-03-10T09:20:15+00:00

thanks for your reply.

I actually found my file - for reference it was at 

HD > Users > [my user name] > Library > Containers > com.microsoft.Powerpoint > Data > Library > Preferences > AutoRecovery > Presentation1_autorecover

but powerpoint wouldn't detect it upon restart, it wouldn't show up in spotlight etc. (I found it with a program called "find my file")

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Anonymous
2015-09-23T20:41:09+00:00

I had to rename the autosave file with a '.pptm' extension before PowerPoint would open it.

It appears the autosave has a content type of "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.main+xml" instead of "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation.main+xml" which is typical for a pptx file.

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Anonymous
2015-03-13T22:04:01+00:00

I guess there's confusion over what type of file you were working on. If it was a Word document then everything in the path is the same except replace the word "PowerPoint" for "Word" and see if anything is in that folder.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-03-09T05:48:25+00:00

    Ok none of these responses quite worked for me and I was getting desperate and panicky & found my combination of them + my own idea that worked, here's what I did:

    1. In Finder, click Go, hold Option to see Library and open it
    2. Navigate from there to /Containers/com.microsoft.Powerpoint/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery
    3. See if the file is in there. If it is, change the extension to PPTM so it will open in Powerpoint and you're in business.
    4. In My case, it was not there. Since other replies here have said Powerpoint cleans that file out as soon as it thinks you closed properly and no longer need the autorecovery file, I remembered that my presentation had been open for hours before I accidentally closed it without saving changes...so I checked Time machine. LUCKILY, there was a time machine backup before I exited powerpoint by mistake so I went to that point in time machine. When I did this, the autorecovery file showed up. Then, change the file extension to PPTM so it'll open, and you're good to go.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-01-22T17:40:36+00:00

    Thank you! I had this problem with a word document that I could not find the autorecovery file after word crashed restarted. It too would not open. I changed the file ending to .doc and it opened.

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